A Daily Slice of Awesome

We live on the edge of an embankment that drops off pretty precipitously to the road below. It's owned by someone who also owns some sort of store that seems so nondescript I can't figure out what they are selling. The trees and undergrowth has been left to grow wild and holy smokes, the blackberries invaded and have blockaded any access to the forest. The bark strip that I have before my precious, luscious lawn sort of reminds me of the DMZ between North and South Korea. No man's land. Recently though, the blackberries have been tunneling under the ground and sending shoots up right in the middle of my lawn! It's crazy! I watched one particular shoot grow for the better part of a month. I wonder if it thought it had succeeded in beating me. Little did it know, however, that I was letting it get big enough that I could get a proper grip on it and rip it out, roots and all. Yesterday, it was plucked and tossed back into its territory. I'm fine if they want to g

Last week I had the opportunity to meet the Governor of Oregon, Kate Brown. I was invited to a small party held at an incredible house in Portland. Now, let's be brutally honest. I met her for all of like one minute. It didn't change my life. It was another interesting experience in a life full of them. She was likewise unchanged, and I'm sure has forgotten me. I think what's most interesting about this experience though is how incredibly out of place I felt. I'm lower management in a relatively small company nobody has heard of. I'm not a minority in any sense but as vanilla white male as they come. Other than chatting with a former co-worker for a few minutes, I conversed more and enjoyed talking with the valet than anyone else. We talked about the weather, politics, things we'd learned, and how neither of us felt like we belonged at the party--he as the help and me as the odd guest there to slush government a little. Nobody was unwelcoming by any mean